Cortex Prime has shipped to backers. The RPG from Cam Banks has kept supporters waiting, initially having an estimated delivery of January 2018. Much as happened to the project since then and the acquisition by Fandom, the company that runs D&D Beyond, is the significant one.
The forthcoming Creator Studio promises to be interesting too, encouraging us to speculate on what Fandom’s plans for leveraging their digital marketing and platforms skills and entering the tabletop RPG world might be.
A tweet from the official Cortex Twitter account has revealed what one of the three official “spotlight” worlds found in the core rules looks like.
Eidolon Alpha and Spotlight settings
The illustrations are by Spanish artist Amagoia Agirre (Society6 | Etsy) and show a world in which characters are vessels for god-like spirits.
It’s a setting that the Cortex Prime Kickstarter described Eidolon Alpha as neoclassical fantasy supers.
Geek Native has confirmed the two other settings in the core rules are, as promised, Hammerheads and TRACE 2.0.
Hammerheads is about international rescue while TRACE 2.0 updates the classic Cortex setting of grim law and order.
Five other spotlight volumes were unlocked by the Kickstarter, and each one contains at least four different settings. The core of Cortex Prime, of course, to be an RPG system that is readily suitable for a wide range of campaign worlds.
These are;
Spotlight Volume One
- Citizen Swords against the Ogre King: A fantasy setting of resistance and revolution.
- Titans vs Leviathans – All Out War for Earth: A near-future setting that features giant robots versus monstrous kaiju.
- Stranger Towns: Weird towns with quirky residents, dangerous secrets, and curious mysteries.
- Retired No More: Golden Age adventurers come out of retirement to face one last threat to all of humanity.
Spotlight Volume Two
- Terraverse: Agents cross back and forth between multiple worlds ranging from the slightly similar to the radically different.
- To the Pain – Grim and Gritty Cortex: Expanded rules for horror and perilous adventure at the bleeding edge of sanity.
- Bone Raiders: A sword and planet setting featuring extraordinary mecha and weird aliens.
- Solarpunk: A post-scarcity setting where powerful corporate interests seek to destabilize the fruits of progress, and the heroes try to stop them.
Spotlight Volume Three
- Necromancer: Modern-day London faces the machinations of a cruel embodiment of Death, with only desperate wizards and sorcerers to stop it.
- Alien, Us: 1950’s picket fence paranoia where the players are aliens hiding among a suspicious humanity.
- Earth is the Nest: Social science fiction featuring a crew of discovery to the stars, challenged not only by the unknown but by their own conflicting goals.
- PRIME Supers: Government-created superheroes are Earth’s last stand against a wave of alien invaders.
Spotlight Volume Four
- Heroic World Creation Kit: Collaboratively build the superhero setting you want to play in as you play.
- Cosa Nostra: The Italian immigrant experience of prohibition-era New York: Crime, guns, family, and food.
- Snowfall Initiative: A science fantasy setting where the PCs are elite special forces teams trying to repair rifts that open between our world and an icy, war-torn fantasy realm.
- Inheritors: A neo-pulp setting featuring multiple generations of adventurers, heroes, and villains.
- Monsters Among Us: Modern horror with monstrous protagonists struggling to survive in a world that hates and fears them!
Spotlight Volume Five
- Safe Zone: A post-apocalyptic setting featuring community and settlement-building.
- Camp Bewilderwood: Play as young heirs to mythic bloodlines and power while forging radical friendships against cosmic evil.
- Shards: In the near future, Earth has been conquered by body-snatching aliens. You play as near-invulnerable ex-cons, beneficiaries of unlicensed medical experiments and, unfortunately, humanity’s last hope.
- Bleed: A many-worlds sandbox setting where a select few heroic individuals exhibit extraordinary gifts as a result of the bleeding over of other realms, including the ability to slide between them.
- Spellcaught: When you’re a young witch in love, high school is the last thing on your mind. But despite evil magicians, rogue creatures, and double-crossing teachers, you still have to graduate… and survive prom.
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